Keeping up the Standards. . . With Apologies to Paul Weller. . .

Almost finished! Just a few more, small, extremely minor bits to touch-up before glossing. But I managed to tackle a few more of these yesterday afternoon.

A second such session in the painting chair followed during which I printed, trimmed, and attached the standard to the flagpole after a coat of varnish to protect the computer printer inks. The evening saw a third session to highlight a few folds here and there on the flag, using some slightly lighter green washes of the facing highlight, which, to my eyes at least, makes it look a bit more like wrinkled silk flapping in the breeze.

Now, although these Eureka figures are sold as Saxon cavalry, and the uniform is based on that worn by the von Plötz Cuirassiers -- Uniform details gleaned from Summerfield, Kronoskaf, and a few additional sources. -- I gave them one of David Morfitt's recent generic Austrian cuirassier standards. David does yeoman's work with his carefully researched and designed flags, standards, and guidons, which just have that certain something about them. Some are based on prototypes that are quite rare, and even his speculative flags are feasts for the eyes. You can find 'em all via his Not by Appointment blog. Thank you for your ongoing work, David!

But back to the cavalry in question.

In my imaginary Army of Zichenau (mortal enemy to the Grand Duchy of Stollen), this particular unit will become a long forgotten regiment of Austrian cuirassiers from Ruthenia. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the von Warhola Kuirassiere. Acrylic glossing will commence this (Sunday) evening! I'll touch up the edges of the green bases once the shiny step has been finished before calling 'em all done.

-- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text . I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well. Now, we're getting somewhere. I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas, Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that." -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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